Estes Renegade-D build

12/28/2012

I had this kit lying around for quite some time. With winter holiday season, there gotta be a rocket built. Here goes build of Estes Renegade-D.

Unpacking Estes Renegade-D kit

12/29/2012

Tons of progress today:

Assembled two fin pods

Assembled two side tubes

Assembled engine mount

Prepaired body tubes

Airfoiled fin edges

12/30/2012

All fins are in place now!

Observation: the kit calls to glue 3 fins to lower body, then 3 fins to upper body, and then join the two with a coupler. Unless the fins on lower & upper bodies are attached at precisely the same angles, they will not align when the two bodies are joined. Perhaps a better solution, tools permitting, would be to first join body tubes and then glue fins, two (upper & lower) at a time. Or use a good fin alignment guide (plastic one from Estes is not great).

Anyway, I managed to get them just right and here are the pics:

Lower body fins and fin pods

Upper body fins

Joined body tubes with coupler

Closer look

1/1/2013

Primed and sanded the rocket. Ready for painting tomorrow.

Another observation: if side tubes are attached to rocket body before painting, then painting around side tubes will be a challenge due to close proximity of the fins. It will result in either white spots around the tubes, or paint overrun on the fins. So, I will paint them first, and glue them after.

Primed and sanded everything

Starting to look nice!

1/3/2013

If you thought aligning 8 fins is tough, try spray-painting outdoors at 30F and 15mph wind ! And when you’re almost done, wind gust covers your rocket with snow from the nearest tree… Sand, repeat 🙂

Spray-painted

Fin close-up

Ready for launch?

1/4/2013

It’s a beauty!

1/5/2013

Launched today at CMASS. Nice flight! Strong wind dragged it across the field, with hard landing in the middle of frozen brook behind the trees. Recovered it an hour later, along with another two rockets!